Advertisement
UK markets closed
  • FTSE 100

    7,895.85
    +18.80 (+0.24%)
     
  • FTSE 250

    19,391.30
    -59.37 (-0.31%)
     
  • AIM

    745.67
    +0.38 (+0.05%)
     
  • GBP/EUR

    1.1607
    -0.0076 (-0.65%)
     
  • GBP/USD

    1.2370
    -0.0068 (-0.55%)
     
  • Bitcoin GBP

    51,630.11
    +622.42 (+1.22%)
     
  • CMC Crypto 200

    1,375.94
    +63.32 (+4.83%)
     
  • S&P 500

    4,967.23
    -43.89 (-0.88%)
     
  • DOW

    37,986.40
    +211.02 (+0.56%)
     
  • CRUDE OIL

    83.24
    +0.51 (+0.62%)
     
  • GOLD FUTURES

    2,406.70
    +8.70 (+0.36%)
     
  • NIKKEI 225

    37,068.35
    -1,011.35 (-2.66%)
     
  • HANG SENG

    16,224.14
    -161.73 (-0.99%)
     
  • DAX

    17,737.36
    -100.04 (-0.56%)
     
  • CAC 40

    8,022.41
    -0.85 (-0.01%)
     

European shares inch up; M&A boosts Fugro, Nutreco

* FTSEurofirst 300 up 0.3 pct, reverses last week's losses

* Nutreco rises as SHV sweetens takeover offer

* Fugro (Xetra: A0ET3V - news) jumps after rival buys 15 pct stake

* Carlsberg (Other OTC: CABGY - news) rallies as quarterly results reassure

By Blaise Robinson

PARIS, Nov 10 (Reuters) - European stocks inched higher early on Monday, reversing some of the previous session's losses, with Nutreco surging 14 percent as SHV sweetened its takeover bid for the Dutch animal feed and nutrition company.

Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) in struggling oil services group Fugro jumped 32 percent, recovering recent sharp losses, after rival Boskalis bought around 15 percent of its shares.

ADVERTISEMENT

Belt-tightening by big energy majors faced with plunging oil prices has been hitting oil services companies, fuelling expectation of consolidation in the troubled sector.

At 0850 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was up 0.3 percent at 1,348.80 points, after losing 0.5 percent last week.

Also on the M&A front, shares in Club Mediterranee (Paris: FR0000121568 - news) rose 4.9 percent, lifted by a report saying Italian tycoon Andrea Bonomi is gearing up to make a counter offer for the French resort, reigniting a takeover battle. Bonomi declined to comment.

Solvay (Brussels: SOLB.BR - news) gained 2.8 percent, lifted by a report that the Belgian chemicals group is looking at selling its Acetow fibre unit worth an estimated $2 billion. Solvay declined to comment.

Carlsberg gained 3.3 percent after posting flat earnings despite a sharp drop in sales in Russia, the Danish brewer's largest market.

"Carlsberg has executed well despite difficult market conditions in Russia and in Western Europe," Alm. Brand analyst Michael Friis Jorgensen said.

"But the investors' focus will quickly shift from the earnings report to the consequences for Carlsberg of the depreciating Russian rouble."

The rouble has slumped nearly 30 percent against the dollar this year as plunging oil prices and Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis shrivelled Russia's exports and investment inflows.

About three quarters of European companies have reported results so far this earnings season, of which 60 percent have met or beaten profit forecasts, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine data.

In absolute terms, profits are up 13.2 percent but revenues are up just 1.1 percent, highlighting the fact that Europe's earnings rebound has mostly come from cost-cutting.

Europe bourses in 2014: http://link.reuters.com/pap87v

Asset performance in 2014: http://link.reuters.com/gap87v

Today's European research round-up (Additional reporting by Teis Jensen in Copenhagen; Editing by Hugh Lawson)